Choices
by walutahanga
Summary: Nova said she'd been leaping about the timeline looking for Omega. What exactly might she have witnessed?


**Title:** Choices

**Author: **walutahanga

**Summary: **Nova said she'd been leaping about the timeline, looking for Omega. What, exactly, might she have seen?

--

The timehole dumps Nova in the middle of a battle. She's kind of used to this sort of thing by now. After months spent jumping through the various timelines, she's landed in the most random of places – even, on one memorable occasion, in Tommy Oliver's bathtub.

She recognises the landscape as earth. The agricultural fields just outside of Angel Grove to be precise, now specked with burnt spots from weapons' fire. There are rangers fighting, and she recognises their opponents from the historical archives. Sting-Wingers, unless she misses her guess. This must be one of the worlds where Trakeena won. There aren't too many of those. Usually when Trakeena wins, she's quickly taken down by Astronema, who brings a second wave of darkness across the galaxy. There's a certain pattern to these things that Nova has come to recognise. Destiny isn't set in stone, but it's certainly predictable.

Nova stands back and watches with interest. These are Astro Rangers, unless she misses her guess. She checks her time dilation device while they're still throwing the Sting-Wingers about. The year is 1999. Odd. Trakeena usually doesn't make it to earth until at least 2005.

She looks up to see that the Sting-Wingers are lying twitching on the ground. The rangers are approaching her warily.

"Who are you?" The red ranger says guardedly. Nova immediately recognises the voice as Andros.

"Waiting," she said. "Don't worry. I'll be out of your hair soon. I'm just waiting for my time hole to open up again."

"Time hole?" The black ranger says. There's no spanish accent, which means he's not Carlos Vallerte. "You're from the future?"

"_A_ future," Nova corrects. "Not yours. I'm looking for someone and I've gotten a little lost."

It's still rather embarrassing to admit, even after having repeated this information again and again. She must have told Andros himself at least a dozen times. She can predict the expressions of skepticism, suspicion and hostility passing over his face behind the helmet. She can also predict that in the next five seconds he's going to say–

"Why should we believe you?"

_Bingo_.

"You don't have to," Nova said patiently. "As I said before, my timehole will be back and I will be gone. I've no interest in fighting for or against you. I'm just waiting for my ride."

She folds her arms as if to prove this, and sits down on a nearby stump. The rangers look at each other, not sure what to make of her. Finally the black ranger speaks up.

"You can't stay here," he says reluctantly. "This is Scorpius' territory."

"Scorpius, huh?" Nova scratches her arm. "Weird."

"What?" Andros demanded.

"Oh, that's just kind of interesting. Scorpius wins even less often than Trakeena does."

She sees the rangers exchange looks.

"Let me get this straight," the black ranger says. "You're travelling through all the different timelines, seeing all the different outcomes?"

"More or less, yes."

"So who wins the most?" The pink ranger asks.

"Usually the rangers," Nova says. "Often the only difference I can see is in who they married afterwards, or where they chose to live, that sort of thing. Like for example, where Eric Myers is married to Wesley Collins instead of Taylor Earhardt."

She says that as a joke, but the rangers don't seem to get it. Maybe they don't have an Myers or Collins in this dimension, at least not playing any significant role. That happens sometimes.

"And the other times?"

"Evil triumphs. Usually it's Astronema or Dark Spectre. Seriously, I've been to so many worlds where Astronema is Empress of Evil it's gotten old. But I've seen Rita win, Zedd win, Rita and Zedd _together_ win, the Machine Empire win, Divatox win…" She ticks them off on her fingers. "…Trakeena win, Bansheera win, Master Org win, Lothor win, Mesagog win…but never Ransick for some reason," she added thoughtfully. "Maybe it's something to do with the integrity of the timeline. Or just deep down Ransick was really a nice guy."

"That must be hard for you," the pink ranger says sympathetically.

"You have no idea," Nova says, looking at Andros.

So far, Andros' fate has varied as widely as Tommy Oliver's. She's seen him die in battle, breathing his last in Ashley's arms. She's seen him run through and left to die alone by Darconda more times than she cares to count. She's seen him take the blow meant for Zhane, and drown on his own blood in the ashes of his homeworld. She's seen him executed, head held high and refusing to bend knee before evil. She's seen him killed by the Machine Empire, just hours before earth is razed for a second time by Serpentera.

Once, just once, she saw his face twisted in a sneer that mirrored his sister's as they command the death of millions. That one took time to get over.

"So you can tell us things," Andros says.

"Like what?"

"Information. The placement of weapons. Anything that might help us."

"I don't know," she says. "Each world tends to vary a lot. There's no telling that anything I tell you will make any difference."

"It can't hurt."

He's said that once before, just before she told him the identify of his sister. They'd found his body later in his quarters, a smoking hole through his head and a blaster fallen from his limp hand. Nova wondered whether it was the shame or despair that had driven him to it.

She checks her time dilation device, and sees she has another few minutes.

"Okay," she says. "What's happened so far here? Who are the rangers, and what happened to the UAE?"

She finds that's usually a good place to start. The United Alliance of Evil is pretty much a constant in every universe – except for those where Rita won ten thousand years ago. Thankfully, Nova hasn't run into more than one of those.

The rangers remove their helmets. Andros has a scar down his left cheek, and his striped hair is cut short. The pink ranger is Cassie Chan, who moves to squeeze Andros' hand. That pairing doesn't surprise Nova as much as it used to. It's fairly common in worlds where Ashley is dead, or with someone else. The blue ranger is younger than the rest, and it takes her a moment to place him. Justin Stewart, grown older and colder. The black ranger turns out to be Mike Corbett. But the big surprise is the person behind the yellow ranger's helmet. Trakeena.

"Wow," Nova says. "I guess things are _really_ different here, huh?"

This is the first universe she's come to where Trakeena actively opposes the darkness. Usually she tries to conquer the universe, or rides off into the sunset with Villimax. To find her as a hero is a refreshing change of pace.

Nova listens to their quick outline of history. It seems the astro rangers defeated the UAE as per usual, but things got sucky when Scorpius showed up a year later intent on taking over earth. He'd killed over half the ranger team while their powers were still stowed in the Megaship on Terra Venture. Mike Corbett had been the pilot that returned the Megaship to earth, just in time to save Andros and Cassie. Trakeena had fallen madly in love with Mike Corbett and run away from her father to be with him. Justin, as an experienced ranger, was recruited to take up blue.

"So?" Justin says eagerly. "Is there anything you can do to help us?"

Nova thinks about it.

"Not really," she says. "Um, I'm assuming project Lightspeed was destroyed?"

Trakeena, Mike and Justin look blank, but Cassie and Andros nod.

"In the initial attacks."

"Okay, then. A bunch of demons is going to break free next year because some idiot is going to stumble across an ancient coffin in the Nevada desert and think it's a great idea to open it. An evil mutant from the future may or may not arrive the year after that, depending on how much the timeline's been thrown off. Serpentera's buried on the moon and needs to be destroyed, like, yesterday. Oh, and find Tommy Oliver, and tell him to get the dino gems away from Anton Mercer pronto."

"That's it?"

"That's it," Nova shrugged. "It doesn't sound like much, I know, but trust me, these things will save you a lot of trouble in the long run."

There is a sudden woosh, and her timehole opens up.

"There's my ride," Nova said, standing. The rangers put their helmets back on, and Andros holds out his hand to Nova. Blue wavering light from the timehole plays over his helmet, turning it dark, almost like blood.

"Thank you," he says.

She hesitates. But it's rare that she manages to leave on such a positive note. It might be nice for a change, to know that she'd made a few small good changes in at least one timeline.

She's just reaching out to grasp his hand when she sees the narrow ship screaming in from the west. She just has time to shout a warning and throw herself flat before the ship fires, and the world blossums into fire and explosive sound. She lies very small, waiting for it all to be over.

She waits until she hears the ship's whine fading into the distance before she lifts her head. The rangers are on the ground. Andros' helmet is cracked open, and she can see blood rolling down his face like black tears. Trakeena is lying sprawled on her back, eyes blank and unseeing.

"Fuck," Nova says. She stands up, blinking away tears behind her helmet. She will not cry. She will _not_. "Fuck, fuck, _fuck_."

Her time dilation device bleeps a warning. The portal's about to close. At her feet, Mike groans, fingers twitching. Cassie is making very small whimpers, of someone wanting to scream but unable to get the sound out. They're still alive. She could save them, if she could get them to shelter in time. It's possible. Justin is still breathing.

Her device bleeps again. She has no more time to think. She leaps into the portal with a scream less of rage than despair, and lets herself be swallowed up by blue. She spins between worlds, to the next universe, the next skip across the pond. She wonders, as she does, what will happen next in the world she's just left behind. Whether Scorpius has won, or someone else, somewhere, will take up the fight, and whether it will be familiar faces behind the helmets, or someone she's never met before. She wonders whether the rangers of that timeline will live.

As always, it's the same choice. She could stay, try to make a difference. But as always, she makes the same decision.

She has her own universe to save.

--


End file.
